Ghana Music Week the fight is over?

After almost a year of tussling and jostling over the ownership of the simple name, ‘Ghana Music Week’, Kwaw Kesse and his manager, Fennec Okyere together with executives of the Musicians Union of Ghana,(MUSIGA) – have called truce on the impasse and reached a consensus.

Kwaw Kesse

Kwaw and Fennec, who registered the name of the festival last year, have finally decided to relinquish all rights to the name ‘Ghana Music Week’ to MUSIGA, after months of deliberations and negotiations.

Speaking to Razz Newspaper, Fennec Okyere was quick to state that the handing over of the rights to MUSIGA hinged on one condition, that the executives register the name of the festival under the name of the Union.

On why they decided to register the name, Fennec disclosed that; last year, in a radio interview, Obour, President of the Union expressed that the festival belonged to some individual companies called Yendis and MBiz respectively. According to him, such a proclamation from the President was disturbing especially when they believed that the festival was a product of the Union and members contributed immensely in the successful organization of the festival.

Fennec Okyere

Explaining why it took them almost a year to give the right reasons on the decision to register the name, he responded, “Some other people within the industry knew the reason behind our actions and we were only working in ensuring that the right thing is done.”

“We are handing over registration documents to MUSIGA based on the condition that the ‘Ghana Music Week’ will be registered under the name of the Union and not for some faceless individuals and entities,” he stressed.

Obour

Commenting on their decision to surrender the rights at this time, Fennec stated that, after a careful observation, they have realized that the President and executives of the Union are now professing that the festival belongs to the Union and after several deliberations between the feuding parties at the behest of some distinguished personalities – they decided to give it up.

Mr. Okyere also said that he will write an official letter to the Registrar-General’s office requesting him to hand over the rights to the ‘Ghana Music Week’ name to MUSIGA, under the condition that, the name is registered under the Union.

On whether they( Kwaw and Fennec) requested for money before handing over the rights, he admitted that indeed, they requested to be paid off during the early stages of the negotiations when the ‘Ghana Music Week’ was being fronted to belong to private companies. When they realized that the name was now being attributed to the Union, which was their reasoning for registering the name in the first place, they had to let it go.